Maureen Dowd’s long, strange trip to Colorado lights up Internet

In more cultured circles, Maureen Dowd is known as the Pulitzer Prize–winning author and columnist for the New York Times, who was once named woman of the year by Glamour and is regarded as one of the most influential left-leaning journalists in the country.

On Twitter, she’s just another superparanoid stoner with a keyboard.

Dowd’s half-baked odyssey began when she flew to Denver to immerse herself in some of the local culture. No, not hitting the slopes or visiting the rifle range. She had designs on getting high. You know, for one of her columns.

So she went down to the local pot shop and bought a THC-laced candy bar. She took a nibble, waited, then made a real rookie mistake: “When nothing happened, nibbled some more,” she wrote. Famous last words.

Then I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy.

I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.

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